State v. Kahler
| Decision Date | 09 February 2018 |
| Docket Number | No. 106,981,106,981 |
| Citation | 410 P.3d 105,307 Kan. 374 |
| Parties | STATE of Kansas, Appellee, v. James K. KAHLER, Appellant. |
| Court | Kansas Supreme Court |
Meryl Carver-Allmond, of Capital Appellate Defender Office, argued the cause, and Sarah Ellen Johnson, of the same office, was with her on the briefs for appellant.
Kristafer R. Ailslieger, deputy solicitor general, argued the cause, and Natalie Chalmers, assistant solicitor general, and Derek Schmidt, attorney general, were with him on the brief for appellee.
A jury convicted James Kraig Kahler of aggravated burglary and capital murder under K.S.A. 21-3439(a)(6) for fatally shooting his wife, his wife's grandmother, and his two daughters. Kahler appeals the capital murder conviction and the ensuing sentence of death; our review is automatic under K.S.A. 2016 Supp. 21-6619.
Kahler raises 10 issues on appeal. Some of the raised issues present questions decided unfavorably to Kahler in prior cases, and Kahler presents no new argument or authority that would persuade us to change our holdings on those issues. Likewise, Kahler fails to convince us that his other challenges warrant a reversal of his capital murder conviction or a vacation of his death sentence. We summarize our specific holdings as follows:
Consequently, we affirm Kahler's capital murder conviction and his sentence of death.
A recitation of some family history preceding the murders is necessary to put Kahler's crimes in context. In 2008, the Kahler family—husband, Kahler; wife, Karen; teenage daughters, Emily and Lauren; and 9-year-old son, Sean—was living in Weatherford, Texas. Kahler was the director of the public utilities department, and Karen was a personal trainer. Both adults had successful careers. Acquaintances described the Kahlers as a perfect family. Kahler was extremely proud of his family; it was his top priority.
That summer, Kahler took a new job as the director of water and light for the city of Columbia, Missouri. He moved to Columbia, while Karen and the children stayed in Texas, planning to follow him in the fall. Before Kahler left for Columbia, Karen told him she was interested in experimenting by engaging in a sexual relationship with a female trainer with whom she worked. Kahler assented to the sexual relationship.
Kahler thought the affair would end when Karen and the children moved to Missouri; however, it did not. At a New Year's Eve party in Weatherford, Kahler was embarrassed by Karen and her lover's behavior, and the evening resulted in a shoving match between the Kahlers. The pair attempted marriage counseling, but by mid-January 2009, Karen filed for divorce. In mid-March, Karen made a battery complaint against Kahler, which resulted in an arrest warrant being served on Kahler at a city council meeting. Because Kahler held public office, his arrest was widely publicized. Shortly thereafter, Karen took the children and moved out of Kahler's residence.
The disintegration of his marriage and family relationships affected Kahler's conduct, both personally and professionally. Kahler's supervisor and another colleague both noted Kahler's increasing preoccupation with his personal problems and decreasing attention to his job. By August 2009, the city had fired Kahler. Concerned about Kahler's well-being, his parents traveled to Columbia and moved Kahler back to their ranch near Meriden, Kansas.
Later that year, at Thanksgiving, Sean joined Kahler at the family ranch in Meriden, while Karen and the girls went to Karen's sister's home in Derby. The family had a long-standing tradition of spending the weekend after Thanksgiving at the home of Karen's grandmother, Dorothy Wight, in Burlingame, Kansas. Arrangements had been made for Karen to pick up Sean in Topeka on Saturday, November 28, and take him to Wight's residence in Burlingame. That morning, Sean, who had been enjoying his time at the Meriden ranch, fishing and hunting with his father, called Karen to ask if he could stay at the ranch. Karen denied permission, and while Kahler was out running an errand, Kahler's mother took Sean to meet Karen in Topeka.
Between 5:30 and 6 that evening, in Burlingame, a neighbor of Wight's called police about a man in a red Ford Explorer near her home whom she suspected of criminal activity. The Explorer was later determined to be Kahler's vehicle. Around 6 p.m., Sean and Karen were standing in the kitchen of Wight's home, while Emily, Lauren, and Wight were elsewhere in the house. Kahler entered Wight's house through the back door, into the kitchen, and started shooting. He shot Karen twice but did not attempt to harm Sean. After Kahler moved through the kitchen to shoot the other victims, Sean ran out the back door and to a neighbor's home where the police were called.
About the same time, Wight's Life Alert system activated a call for emergency assistance and that in turn resulted in a 911 call to law enforcement. The system also created a recording of the events in the house.
When officers arrived, Karen was lying on the kitchen floor, unconscious and barely breathing. Emily, who had also been shot twice, was dead on the living room floor. Wight was sitting in a chair in the living room, suffering from a single gunshot wound to the abdomen, but conscious. Lauren, who had been shot twice, was found upstairs, conscious but having trouble breathing. Kahler was no longer in the house, but both Wight and Lauren told the first responders that Kahler was the person who had shot them. Karen and Lauren died from their wounds later that evening. Wight survived a few days but ultimately succumbed to her wounds as well.
Kahler managed to elude law enforcement that evening but was found walking down a country road the next morning. He surrendered without incident. The State charged Kahler with one count of capital murder, or, in the alternative, four counts of premeditated first-degree murder, as well as one count of aggravated burglary for the unauthorized entry into Wight's house.
At trial, the defense did not dispute that it was Kahler who shot the victims. Rather, the defense attempted to establish that severe depression had rendered Kahler incapable of forming the intent and premeditation required to establish the crime of capital murder. The defense presented testimony from Dr. Stephen Peterson, a forensic psychiatrist, who testified that Kahler was suffering from severe major depression at the time of the crime and that "his capacity to manage his own behavior had been severely degraded so that he couldn't refrain from doing what he did." Defense counsel, however, did not specifically ask Dr. Peterson whether Kahler had the capacity to premeditate or to form the requisite intent to commit the crimes. The State countered with the expert testimony of Dr. William Logan, also a forensic psychiatrist, who opined that Kahler was capable of forming the requisite intent and premeditation.
During closing arguments, defense counsel asserted that Kahler was incapable of forming the requisite premeditation or intent at the time of the killings. In return, the State argued that the defense expert had failed to specifically address that point, while the State's expert had directly stated that Kahler was capable of premeditating the murder and forming the requisite intent to kill.
The jury convicted Kahler of capital murder. After hearing additional evidence in the penalty phase, the same jury recommended the death sentence.
As noted, Kahler raised 10 issues on appeal, all of which are argued in the context of the capital murder conviction and the ensuing death sentence. Consequently, we will review only that conviction and sentence and will address each issue in the order presented.
In his first issue, Kahler alleges that the prosecutor engaged in prosecutorial misconduct when she objected during defense counsel's closing argument. Defense counsel was discussing the recording produced during the commission of the crime by the Life Alert system. A male voice, presumably Kahler's, had been captured on the recording. Defense counsel was about to state the words spoken by that male voice, when the prosecutor interrupted, objecting that defense counsel's argument constituted improper unsworn testimony based on what defense counsel thought the voice had said. The district court sustained the objection.
At oral argument, both parties acknowledged that this court's decision in State v. Sherman , 305 Kan. 88, 378 P.3d 1060 (2016), although decided after the briefs in this case were filed, now controls the analysis...
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...as it bears on the mental element of a crime but abandons lack of ability to know right from wrong as a defense." State v. Kahler , 307 Kan. 374, 400, 410 P.3d 105 (2018), aff'd Kahler v. Kansas , 589 U.S. ––––, 140 S. Ct. 1021, 1037, 206 L. Ed. 2d 312 (2020).Genson argues that K.S.A. 2019 ......
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